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en-usEngadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronicsCopyright 2017 AOL Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/23/uk-asa-watchdog-ad-broadband-speed-rules/https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/23/uk-asa-watchdog-ad-broadband-speed-rules/https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/23/uk-asa-watchdog-ad-broadband-speed-rules/#comments

Broadband packages are notoriously difficult to untangle. Prices are obscured with introductory discounts and the speeds you get are nothing like what was advertised. It sucks, and the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) knows it. So today, the watchdog has announced new rules for broadband advertising. From now on, the figure you see must be based on the download speeds available to 50 percent of the company's customers at peak hours. In addition, a qualifier like "average" must be visible. It's a marked improvement over the previous guidelines, which said speeds must be available to at least 10 percent of customers.

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has its work cut out for it as the line between legitimate online content and ads gets ever blurrier. Social media "influencers" regularly flout the rules and despite the sheer volume of posts across different platforms, the ASA occasionally issues slaps on the wrists for offending Tweets and Instagram campaigns. And today, the ASA has wagged a stern finger at Snapchat posts that weren't appropriately labelled as ads for the first time.

Broadband pricing is easier to understand than it used to be. Last year, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) forced ISPs to include line rental in the price of contracts, so consumers know exactly what they're expected to pay each month. (Introductory discounts still obscure the price you'll be paying later down the line, but hey-ho. Baby steps.) That November, the ASA said it was also time to revisit speed claims, given most customers are unlikely to get what's advertised. Today, the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) -- which sets the rules the ASA enforce -- has proposed a number of ways speed claims could be made more transparent.

Sky's got not one, not two, but three tidbits of broadband-related news to share today, just before knocking off for Christmas. The first is the launch of the "UK's lowest fibre broadband and line rental offer" at £20 per month, with a one-off £20 setup fee. It's exclusive to new and existing Sky TV customers, and similar discounts can be found on the provider's other fibre options. Next up, Sky's got a new customer support team dedicated solely to fixing broadband issues, which we'll call the on/off squad. Most interesting, though, is from today Sky will begin advertising the average download speeds of its broadband packages alongside the standard "up to" metric.

No Man's Sky developer Hello Games has emerged from a marketing investigation unscathed. The UK's Advertising Standards Authority has spent the last two months examining claims that the game's steam page is misleading. Disgruntled players had taken issue with screenshots, videos and text which, in their opinion, showed the game with better visuals, performance and planetary exploration. These covered warping, ship battles and the complexity of extraterrestrial life. The ASA disagreed, however, concluding that the materials were largely representative of the final product and "unlikely to mislead" consumers.

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advertisingadvertisingstandardsauthorityasaavgaminghellogamesnmsnomansskysteamvalveWed, 30 Nov 2016 04:40:00 -050021|21617174https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/26/ee-bundle-broadband-line-rental-pricing/https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/26/ee-bundle-broadband-line-rental-pricing/https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/26/ee-bundle-broadband-line-rental-pricing/#comments
When the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) introduced new legislation requiring UK ISPs and providers to be clearer with their broadband pricing earlier this year, some heeded the advice faster than others. Vodafone and TalkTalk were the first to bundle line rental in their broadband packages, but today EE is joining the list. As of now, customers signing up to a new broadband and calls contract will receive a clear monthly price.

It's fairly common for the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to wag a finger at ISPs and mobile operators for misleading claims or poorly worded fine print. Every now and again, though, the watchdog deals with a slightly more unusual complaint. The latest company giving the ASA a headache is fibre broadband provider Hyperoptic, which is in trouble for a snail-mail marketing campaign that looked a little too similar to the cards you get through the door when you've missed a parcel delivery.

Tesla and Ecotricity, a British energy provider using renewable sources, have a rocky relationship. Years ago the two came together to work on Tesla's Supercharger network in the UK, but disagreements led to a feisty lawsuit and an out of court settlement. Since then the pair have been exchanging blows through the UK's Advertising Standards Authority; Tesla filed a complaint about Ecotricity's website that was ultimately dismissed in April. Ecotricity submitted its own concerns about Tesla's site which, in a ruling published today, has also been thrown out by the regulator.

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a billboard advert for Three's mobile network, after a six-month complaint from rival carrier EE was finally upheld. The ad, which features a purple Muppet-like character called Jackson being held aloft in a Rocky-style pose, featured the tagline: "The undisputed. UK's most reliable network. Again." EE claimed Three couldn't state it was the "undisputed" market leader without saying it was based on YouGov sample data and the ASA agreed.

TalkTalk announced just yesterday that, later this year, it would simplify its broadband prices by including line rental in the monthly costs. And now we know why. Sure, a single figure makes it easier to understand what you'll be paying each month, but it was hardly an altruistic move. It's almost as if TalkTalk knew that today, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) was going to confirm new guidelines that effectively force internet service providers (ISPs) to make broadband contract pricing more transparent.

Line rental is one of the things you have to consider when taking out a broadband contract, since they almost always come hand in hand. But with these two separate monthly fees, one-off setup charges and introductory discounts, you need ten minutes and a calculator to figure out exactly what you're being asked to pay. TalkTalk has pledged today, however, that this autumn it's going to make everything that bit simpler, by bundling line rental and broadband costs into one, transparent monthly price for all of its packages.

If you've ever gone on the hunt for a new internet provider, you'll know how hard it can be to glean pricing information from adverts. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK's advertising watchdog, agrees it's a very real problem and has today issued new guidelines that it believes will stop providers burying their service costs and duping consumers with their marketing.

Once again, BT has been criticised for promoting its BT Sport channels with "misleading" TV ads. The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has told the company to pull a number of adverts, including a prominent one on TV, which promises free BT Sport access for BT TV and BT broadband customers. For BT, this is particularly bad timing. The company finally has the rights to broadcast live Champions League and Europa League football in the UK, after snatching them from Sky back in 2013. The two prestigious tournaments didn't come cheap, so BT needs BT Sport -- and specifically its new BT Sport Europe channel -- to be a resounding success. With that in mind, BT has been heavily promoting its European sports coverage as a "free" extra for all BT TV customers.

Halloween has passed and November is here. For advertisers, that means it's about time to debut this year's festive adverts. PayPal jumped straight in, airing its own during an X Factor ad break on Sunday night, but for hundreds of Brits, it's already destroyed the magic of Christmas. The Guardian reports that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has received 233 complaints from viewers arguing that PayPal's advert implies that Father Christmas isn't real.

To celebrate 20 years of PlayStation, Sony created 12,300 limited edition PS4 consoles and offered them to gamers all over the world. In the US, they were sold to whoever could click the buy button fast enough, but in the UK, the company took a more convoluted approach. First was the PlayStation '94 Shop in London, where 94 consoles were put aside for the low price of £19.94 (with all proceeds going to gaming charity GamesAid). Then came a partnership with GAME, which required gamers to solve riddles, click iconic PlayStation characters and enter a competition before anyone else.

Kazam is hardly a well-known smartphone brand in the UK, and that's unlikely to change any time soon if its ads are being pulled from TV. After a series of complaints, Britain's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an ad for the company's Tornado 348 handset, ruling that it objectifies women and is "sexually suggestive." The clip shows a woman moseying around in her underwear, grabbing a pair of jeans and ironing a shirt, only to discover that she'd forgotten to take her smartphone out of the top pocket.

Earlier this month, Britain's Advertising Standards Authority barred EA from advertising its mobile game Dungeon Keeper as "free-to-play." Why? Because Dungeon Keeper has a countdown timer that blocks progress in the game, a timer that can be bypassed with money. "From the information available in the ad, players would expect the gameplay progression and their ability to advance to be unhindered by unexpected and excessively onerous delays," wrote ASA, "and we therefore considered that the length and frequency of these countdown events was beyond that which would be reasonably expected by players. [...] While we understood that the average consumer would appreciate that free-to-play games were likely to contain monetization functions, we considered that they would also expect the play experience of a game described as 'free' to not be excessively restricted."

Welcome, ASA, to the MMO community's endless debate over what constitutes free-to-play! This "free-to-wait" game mechanic is nothing new to us; it pervades mobile titles as well as many MMORTS titles and indie MMOs (Glitch and Villagers and Heroes come to mind). As a gamer, I find the mechanic not so much exploitative as obnoxious, and I'd rather not see it spread. But I spy a slippery slope here. Do you think the ASA is right? Are MMOs with this mechanic (or similar mechanics) misleading consumers? Which F2P games could be legitimately F2P under the ASA's understanding of the term?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

The UK's Advertising Standards Agency upheld a complaint against EA today, ruling the publisher misled customers by promoting its mobile Dungeon Keeper game as "free." The British authority told EA to ensure future adverts are upfront about what limits there are to "free gameplay" and how in-app purchases affect it.

The ad in question was sent via e-mail, and the ASA says it stated "GET DUNGEON KEEPER ON MOBILE FOR FREE!" In its response to the complaint, EA said Dungeon Keeper was free to download, in-app purchases were not required, and gameplay without in-app purchases wasn't severely compromised. The publisher noted Gems can be used to accelerate and boost progress, but added that while Gems can be purchased for money, the game awards them through regular interaction.

Sega Europe will alter its deceptive trailers of Aliens: Colonial Marines in the UK to acknowledge the difference between promotion and final product. GI.biz reports a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK by a Reddit user triggered Sega to make amends in order to avoid a formal investigation.

"Sega Europe acknowledged your objection that the trailers did not accurately reflect the final content of the game," Niall McVeigh, complaints executive at the Advertising Standards Authority wrote. "[Sega] agreed to add a disclaimer, both on their website and in all relevant YouTube videos, which explains that the trailers depict footage of the demo versions of the game. The disclaimer will be visible when each online trailer is played."

According to the ASA website, the organization received four complaints. It's widely known now that Sega and developer Gearbox Software misled the press and public with inaccurate demonstrations of Aliens: Colonial Marines for years. The game currently stands as one of the worst reviewed titles of 2013.
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advertising-standards-authorityaliens-colonial-marinesasagearbox-softwaremicrosoftpcplaystationps3segasega-europexboxWed, 03 Apr 2013 08:07:00 -040011|20528134https://www.joystiq.com/2012/06/13/uk-advertising-standards-authority-clears-mass-effect-3/https://www.joystiq.com/2012/06/13/uk-advertising-standards-authority-clears-mass-effect-3/https://www.joystiq.com/2012/06/13/uk-advertising-standards-authority-clears-mass-effect-3/#comments

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of the UK will not act on claims that Electronic Arts misled consumers about Mass Effect 3 when it advertised "decisions you make completely shape your experience and outcome."

"The ASA acknowledged the belief that players' choices in the game did not influence the outcome to the extent claimed by EA," the group wrote in a statement obtained by CVG. "However, we considered that the three choices at the end of the game were thematically quite different, and that the availability and effectiveness of those choices would be directly determined by a player's score, which was calculated with reference to previous performance in the game(s).

"Whilst we acknowledged that the advertiser had placed particular emphasis on the role that player choices would play in determining the outcome of the game, we considered that most consumers would realize there would be a finite number of possible outcomes within the game and, because we considered that the advertiser had shown that players' previous choices and performance would impact on the ending of the game, we concluded that the ad was not misleading."

The charges against EA were brought by consumers unhappy with Mass Effect 3's conclusion. Developer BioWare is currently in the process of creating an "extended cut" ending that will hopefully be more satisfactory.
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advertising-standards-authorityasabiowareeaelectronic-artsmass-effect-3microsoftpcplaystationps3xboxWed, 13 Jun 2012 15:30:00 -040011|20257673https://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/01/turbine-fields-33-lord-of-the-rings-online-questions/https://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/01/turbine-fields-33-lord-of-the-rings-online-questions/https://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/01/turbine-fields-33-lord-of-the-rings-online-questions/#comments

If you could ask a dev team anything about your favorite MMO, what would it be? Well, Turbine invited its Lord of the Rings Online players to do just that, and today the studio posted 33 answers to the sometimes-serious, sometimes-silly queries that players posed.

Through this community Q&A, we learned that the team is working on a way to disable experience gain, has put additional hobbies on hold, has discussed and mostly dismissed multi-attachment mail, and is considering how dynamic events might work in the game.

So do the devs play the game they make? Sapience says they do: "I think you'd be surprised at how many people at Turbine play LotRO on a regular basis." There are also a lot of interesting tidbits in this Q&A regarding the decisions behind prioritizing features, expanding into certain regions, and how the teams work in tandem to produce content.

Finally, Sapience said that players should be seeing pre-order information for Riders of Rohan "Incredisoon™" and that there will probably be ways to attain the game's soundtrack in the future.
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asaask-me-anythingcommunity q&acommunity-q-and-aexpansionsf2pfantasyfree-to-playincredisoonlord of the rings onlinelord-of-the-ringslord-of-the-rings-onlinelotroq-and-arick-heatonriders-of-rohansapienceturbineturbine-entertainmentFri, 01 Jun 2012 16:00:00 -0400319|20249741https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/24/uk-advertising-authority-smacks-motorola-for-misleading-atrix-ad/https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/24/uk-advertising-authority-smacks-motorola-for-misleading-atrix-ad/https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/24/uk-advertising-authority-smacks-motorola-for-misleading-atrix-ad/#comments

Oh dear. Remember Motorola's advert claiming the Atrix was the "world's most powerful smartphone?" Well it's now been banned in the UK by the Advertising Standards Authority. Viewers complained about the misleading phrase as the Galaxy S II has a faster 1.2 GHz processor, compared to Atrix's 1GHz. Moto said it meant "powerful" in the sense it could drive various devices -- the ASA didn't agree, since the phrase was read out over the final shot in the advert, where the phone appears in isolation. It ruled that as such, the advert was misleading and can only reappear on UK TV with the contentious phrase removed. Armchair adjudicators can decide for themselves in the video after the break.

Just about every day we're treated to claims of a device being the "world's first" or "world's biggest" or, indeed, "world's fastest." Typically we file these stories into the "world's least exciting" folder in our inbox, but in the UK, Motorola's advertising wing has really been pushing the "world's most powerful smartphone" angle for the Atrix. Sharp-eyed UK viewers (one of whom was kind enough to write in to us) aren't buying it, however, complaining to the nation's Advertising Standards Authority, the ASA. Citing the Galaxy S II, which has a 1.2GHz processor compared to the Atrix's 1GHz, the ASA has indicated that the complaint will be upheld, as you can see for yourself after the break. Now, it's looking like Motorola will have to come up with a new way to market the thing over there. We'd suggest "smartphone most likely to run Firefox in an overpriced laptop dock," but that doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an ad for Sony's Move (and, by association, The Fight: Light's Out) after receiving eight complaints. Brand Republic reports that the watchdog agency said the ad was likely to "condone or encourage violent behavior" and wasn't suitable for children's precious, innocent modern eyes.

Two of the complaints claimed the ad might condone racially motivated violence because the player is white and the man being tackled is "black." The ASA said the ad featured men of "slightly different skin tones," but wasn't likely to be interpreted as condoning racist violence.

The race card may have been difficult to play on this ad (especially when compared to the infamous Dutch white PSP campaign), but the ASA has been concerned about violence in ads for quite some time. Previous kerfuffles had to do with violent imagery in ads for Kane & Lynch and Condemned 2.
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advertising-standards-authorityasabannedbritainmoveplaystationps3the-fightthe-fight-lights-outukWed, 22 Dec 2010 16:30:00 -050011|19773562https://www.engadget.com/2009/09/02/truth-in-advertising-prevails-in-uk-samsung-to-re-word-led-tv/https://www.engadget.com/2009/09/02/truth-in-advertising-prevails-in-uk-samsung-to-re-word-led-tv/https://www.engadget.com/2009/09/02/truth-in-advertising-prevails-in-uk-samsung-to-re-word-led-tv/#comments

Turns out it's not only us HD geeks that were irked by Samsung's ad-speak pitching LED-backlit LCDs as 'LED TVs' -- and in the UK, at least, there's been some corrective action. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has found that the terminology doesn't comply with marketing regulations and is misleading because unless you've got a set like Jerry Jones', the display isn't made of LEDs. Spot on, ASA! To be sure, Sammy's new sets do have plenty of redeeming qualities, but whatever marketing genius came up with the 'LED TV' phrase is going to have to go back to the drawing board. Now, if only we could get some of this reasoning applied to US marketing and/or rein in wacky contrast ratio figures, we'd really be onto something.